


Poor substitute

by ToodleBoog



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Fluff and Smut, M/M, Masturbation, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Non-Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 20:07:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21397918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToodleBoog/pseuds/ToodleBoog
Relationships: Cyclonus & Tailgate, Cyclonus/Tailgate (Transformers)
Kudos: 37





	Poor substitute

It came in a wave while he was sorting though some cargo that no one had bothered to categorise yet, first starting with a funny feeling in his tanks. Cyclonus tried to ignore it, as "funny feelings" weren't all that uncommon on the lost light. As he was about halfway through sorting he began to feel hot and dizzy. 

Ok. Now something was surely wrong. He sat down for a moment on a flat to try and run an internal diagnostic. The next thing that hit him was the smell. It took him a click and a half to identify it, granted, but it was **strong**. 

**Pheromones** .

He was (rapidly) going into heat.

To be quite frank it shocked him at first, he didn't think such a thing was possible after the dead universe. Mayhaps being with Tailgate did something for him… He heard the unfamiliar click of his cooling fans turning on and he sighed. He was fine at the moment, being there were no other mech in the room that could have... _ provoked... _ any sort of response from his frame, but he still needed to inform the medical staff and,  _ sort out, _ his dilemma to a degree. 

He pulled out a data pad from his subspace and quickly tapped out a message to the medical office (Someone would see it) and then quickly hit send before he could decide better of it. He also sent a message to the head of staff to let them know he would be unavailable for the next few days and to contact the medical staff if they needed. He didn't feel quite as bad about hitting send on that one. 

He had had a few heats back in his day, he remembered them always being worse at first. Which didn't help him in his particular situation.

Next thing he needed to do was get out of this cramped room, ease up on the already overtaxed ventilation systems that consisted of 1(one) set of vents, floor and ceiling.

He opened the doors and felt a wash of cool air over his plating (was he really that hot?) and he stepped out into the corridor, looking both ways to check for anyone. Now all he needed to do was take the most seldom used pathways back to the hab suites, the likes of which he knew rather intimately, so that wouldn't be an issue. 

He set down the hallway, right here, pass two crossings and to the end of the hall, left, keep until the hallway where the motion sensor lights flickered on. (just to get a sense of how rarely used they were) Waves of dust buffeted up as he walked, his fans blowing mildly. Some managed to find its way into his intake vents and he locked up, flared his Armour, and then violently constricted his plating tight around his body to try and force air back out through his intake vents, it worked, but was unpleasant nonetheless.

At the end of the hallway there was an abandoned elevator. He pressed the up button and waited an eternity for it to come clunking down the shaft. The lift came to a slow stop and the doors rattled open. Inside was some old graffiti that he never paid any mind, stuff like little doodles on the walls, distasteful, scrawling messages about ultra magnus, a scratched message in the top right corner of the car from whirl saying “Whirl wuz here” and then a little doodle of himself underneath it. Cyclonus had shown him the elevator a while back and almost immediately he had started using it on the regular. He had done that particular one while cyclonus was with him. There was another one however, that whirl had made. Whirl had hidden it well. It was on one of the ceiling tiles, on the edge where the support covered it up. You had to lift it to be able to read it. Cyclonus wondered if it was still there. He reached up and lifted the panel slightly and there it was, as always. It said nothing but simply “ _ I miss my  _ _ h a nd s _ _ … _ ” in scratchy, half attentive scribbles. The last word faded away as it trailed off. He took his hand away and let the tile fall back into place.

The doors creaked open and he stepped out of the elevator, wary of its artistic contents. He was now in a side hallway that branched off of the hab suites. Nothing here but broom closets and the lone terminal that sat in the middle of its length. 

Luckily he was able to make it back to his hab without any complications, on the inside, however, was another story. He took a step into the room and was almost immediately aware of how much it ** smelled** like  _ Tailgate _ . He had never noticed it before. It was a heady, sweet smell, and for whatever reason it drove him  ** _mad_ ** . He could get addicted. He flexed his claws in frustration, his body becoming antsy as if he couldn't get comfortable during a restless night of recharge.(which he would likely have _ plenty _ of.) He needed to hold something,  _ anything _ , he needed to be held, to be  _ touched _ . He needed to- he needed… 

He needed distract himself. He took his datapad out of his subspace again and scanned through his messages, trying to take his mind off the incessant itch that had deep rooted its place in his frame. Nothing back from the head of staff, but there was something back from the medical office. He scanned through it. It said something to the likes of they had notified his superiors and would be sending his rations to his hab, and- well- well he didn't know what now. He was positively  _ aching. _ He went to one of the storage cabinets in their suite, and grabbed a heavy blanket, and wrapped himself up and sat up on the berth, needing any sort of physical contact that he could get.

Ooh he was  _ burning.  _ That wouldn't work. The trapping of hot air under the cloth made him queasy, his tanks simmering themselves into a sickening churn. He threw the blanket off and increased the airflow to his systems, sitting there slumped over. He was still burning at his core. The high pitched whine of his engines sputtered, ringing loudly in his audials.

He took the edge of the blanket and absentmindedly started pushing holes through the mesh with one hand, pushing his thumb claw into the crisscross pattern of the metal fibers, then slightly next to it, closing up the first hole, then again, and again, and again. He just needed something to do. The burning in his chest became more unpleasant, almost painfully so. He started ventilating harshly, and  _ well… tailgate wouldn't be back for a while… _

_ No. _

He wasn't going to subject the room or tailgate to the heat that would be exuded by an overloaded spark. 

He pulled the blanket over his head in frustration, the coarse fabric making a “Bpdtzzzzzzt” noise as it scraped over his horn tips. If he pulled his head more it was likely they’d pierce right through. He clutched at the cool edges of the berth, desperate for something-  _ anything _ \- to help take this hotness away. 

There were claw indentations when he pulled back.

He pulled the blanket from his head and kicked it to the floor, where it made a soft, rumpling “tink.” He would pick that up later. 

In a moment of desperation he pressed himself down onto the flat surface of the berth. He let out a sigh at it's relative coolness but then stifled a cough as he inhaled the scent. He offlined his optics and inhaled deeply, his fans making the “tckTick- tckTick- tckTick-” of speeding up to a higher setting,and then a higher one, and then a higher one than that, barely audible over the loud hum of the air circulating through his frame. 

That sweet scent. It smelled of comfort and familiarity, of, well-  _ Tailgate. _ It smelled like the barely sensable scent of the engex that lingered on him when he came back  **chatty** . It smelled like the ozone that would be caused by his joints rubbing together in the wrong way, it smelled like the paint he used to paint his little hoverboard, it smelled like the wax he’d apply after long days of waste cleanup, coming back from the wash racks.

“ _ Tailgate… _ ”

It was barely a whisper.

Something inside him went nuts, just absolutely feral. Just saying his name out loud caused a physical reaction from his frame. Electricity spiked inside his gut, then his chest, it traveled hotly through his limbs, causing jarring little zaps between his teeth as it flitted through his optics and neck cables. His whole frame buzzed with what seemed was hot, uncomfortable anxiousness. He couldn't pinpoint any specific location until he had moved his arms, accidentally brushing against his side panel. He jumped and jolted away from himself, as both his panel and his hand had transferred a painful shock to each other. 

He breathed an unintentional, almost euphoric sigh of relief when came that heat out of his system. His processor clouded over, wanting to keep that feeling of release. He popped his panel, hovering slightly over the connection ports as if some last moment of conscious thought was about to think better of this. He couldn't keep that rational mindset however, as another zapping arc bridged the gap before he could put any second thought into it.

He groaned, his vocaliser glitching through the rumble, spitting a mixture of static and deep reverberations. The whine of his engines clearly said everything that was needed to know.

That moment when he finally made the full connection had him reeling. He arched his spine, his biolights flashing their brightest that they'd been in quite a long time. As the circuit closed the null feedback loops began to go haywire, throwing off his sense of what he was feeling, trying to block the flow of energy between himself and well,  _ himself. _ He was frying his own circuits by causing a massive overload loop in his interface systems, making his body dump the energy as heat. His body sent a signal to his processor that was a mixture of stop and keep going, which was then read as an echo of physical intimacy.

It was pleasurable.

-But he knew it was a poor substitute. It was damaging. 

He needed real contact, he knew that. -Maybe he could request a grounding box to help dissipate this energy, or maybe.. 

_ No, he couldn't ask such a thing, could he? _

The mental image of tailgate flashed in his head and stayed there, burned in full into the backs of his retinas. 

He suddenly realized that he had neglected to inform his roommate, and all too late it seemed, as the door to the hab suite slid open with a shnnnkt. His spark plummeted.

He locked up, still panting, propped up on one elbow while the other arm stayed locked to his side ports.

"Cyclonus?!?!" 

He felt tailgates EM field clash into his with worry and embarrassment. He tried to speak but all that came out was a faint hissing mixed with the rapid little clicks from desperately trying to reset. He managed to mouth out the words "tailgate wait!" Right before the door slammed shut between him and his roommate. Cyclonus heard a thunk against the wall and then a scraping sound as Tailgate had put his back to the hallway wall and sat down outside the door. 

Guilt hit his spark, and then shame, and then remorse, and embarrassment and disgust soon followed after. All of them hitting him simultaneously and individually. Each one hitting harder than the last and all at once.

He had to fix it, there was no way that he could just let that situation go, especially if he was going to be in this state for the next few days. He took his arm away from his side, his digits and forearm still tingling numbly from the electrical discharge. Getting up on shaky knees, he walked over to the door, standing behind it awkwardly. He could still feel tailgate on the other side, his field flaring absentmindedly and almost distractedly. He must have really shocked him. He felt horrible. 

He opened the door and his optics fogged over from condensation, so much so that he couldn't see tailgate. He looked in the direction he thought he was and hurriedly whispered "Quick. Come inside." While looking up and down the hallway for whatever use it was. He grabbed the doorframe as his head became light. He saw tailgates shape enter and then audibly gasp and choke. As his vision cleared he realized the atmosphere must have been  ** _suffocating_ ** . He quickly rushed over to the thermostat and turned the cooling up. (How didn't he think about that earlier?)

"I can explain." He said, turning around to see his roommate in the middle of the room. Tailgate just stared at him in a worried daze. Cyclonus choked up. His thighs shook. His frame felt wet from all the steam and the fine flexible metal scutes that lined his neck were seeping out stickiness along with a sickly sweet metallic smell. He realized his situation and dumped more heat out, his fans working overtime. He was exhausted, and this was hell. Almost.

"-I'm in  _ heat. _ " was all he managed to choke out. 

Tailgate stared at him through the fog on  _ his _ visor, hands fumbling and biolights pulsing.

"Cyclonus I feel dizzy- what's happening- what's going on, are you ok? Are you sick?" He asked nervously, kicking a scuff into their floor. He didn't dare move towards the purple jet. 

Cyclonus let out a low groan. 

"-In a sense, yes- but also  _ no _ . It's not something that can be fixed, it has to be-" He took in a desperate gulp of air into his systems. " _ -waited out _ ."

"Cyclonus  _ why _ am I dizzy, more importantly, I why am I  _ hot?"  _ Tailgate asked, concerned.

Cyclonus didn't know what to say to that. He felt his mouth go dry even though he was fairly sure it had been over lubricating just a moment ago.

"That would be- m-my _scent--_ _Ah_. He choked. "T-the scent of a heat t-TZzzt-ENDS_-ftttzt-_ _-to_ have rather _adverse_ effects on surrounding mech I-I'm afraid-" his vocalizer hitched and sputtered. His hands were shaking and he was pretty sure he could see steam escaping from his cheeks now.

Tailgate sat there staring blankly. Cyclonus fretted. He wanted to tell Tailgate to run, wanted to tell him to get away from him as fast as he could. He didn't know if Tailgate would be strong enough to not be affected. He probably wouldn't be. Minibots usually faired worse, especially against one this  _ concentrated. _

As much as he’d hate to admit it, there was something about the minibot he found  _ endearing _

Maybe he  _ wasn't _ too keen on having Tailgate go.

"Cyclonus, can I...-" Tailgate trailed off, walking closer to Cyclonus, feet tripping over themselves. Cyclonus didn't stop him. 

He tentatively reached out a hand and touched Cyclonus' thigh with his fingertips, the touch so light that he could  ** _see_ ** the electricity arc from one surface to another. Cyclonus groaned, barely anything, more of a hum but it was there. His spark wavered in his chest so hard he thought it might bore a hole right through his armour. Tailgate pulled his arm away sharply with a gasp and all too soon that dissipation stopped. Electricity started to vibrate his nerves into pieces again. He was humming with strain, the energy building itself up tightly in his muscles. Cyclonus panted through his vents.

" _ Tailgate-"  _ he managed between gulps of air.

Tailgate looked up into his eyes and he saw the minibot's expression as it changed into something  _ darker _ . 

His optics, half lidded and smoulderingly  _ red, _ probably didn't help his situation much.

" _ Disable your ol'factory sensor, and activate your SIM* chip-  _ ** _please._ ** " Cyclonus had to take precautions. He didn't know where the sudden sense of  _ politeness _ came from.  _ (*Sensory Intake Moderation chip) _

There was a pause and a click. Cyclonus gave Tailgate a moment to filter all the pheromones out of his processor. 

Tailgate looked at him with sudden acute sharpness that startled him, and then did something  _ different _ . The piercing gaze from behind that visor cut through him. It knew. 

Cyclonus was sitting on his berth again. When did that happen?

"Cyclonus-" he was cut off.

" _ Are you sure?-" _ he said, short and stilted.

"Let me  _ help _ you," 

Tailgate made a motion to clamber up onto the platform with him. Cyclonus erratically scrambled back like an animal backed into a corner.

"**Tailgate**_._" He said sternly. "**_Yes_** **_or_** **_no_**_. I _**_need_**_ you to answer."_

The minibot looked him dead in the eyes and said yes. Cyclonus relaxed a bit. Well, more like a  **lot** . He slammed his body back into the cool surface of his berth, relishing it's coolness.

Apparently that was all the invitation that Tailgate needed.

As Tailgate used him to climb up he felt shocks shoot out of his frame and to the minibots. He groaned, leaning his head back slowly, savoring that feeling. He was _very _close to overload. 

When Tailgate straddled his waist he had to stifle a moan, the feeling of Tailgate's panel and thighs conducting the energy away from him sent him  _ reeling.  _ Tailgate's frame was so cool compared to his. 

When Tailgate laid flat against him, he was nearly floating in pure bliss, their spark chambers hovering over each other.

" _ Ah- _ Tailgate- I _ -nnnNGH-!"  _ He growled, his optics dimming to a hot shade of scarlet as Tailgate pressed firmly into his side array with the palm of his hand, pushing his  _ own _ charge into Cyclonus.

"Cyc, I have wanted to do this for  _ so long. _ I could just never find the right moment-" he let out a soft pant of his own. "-to even  _ suggest-  _ ** _ahhh~_ ** "

Cyclonus felt a swell in his charge and it echoed through Tailgate. 

Tailgate planted a hand on Cyclonus' chest, fumbling with the other at his interface panel.

" _ Can I-?" _ He asked

_ " _ ** _Please_ ** _ ."  _ Cyclonus urged, wrapping a hand around Tailgates back.

Tailgate pulled his interface cord out with a shaking hand and jacked in. 

Cyclonus nearly forgot how to think. He surged the line and Tailgate cried out, his fingertips on Cyclonus' chest leaving dents in the smooth plating. Cyclonus struggled to focus. He felt a cool hand on his jaw and he looked down, Tailgate staring at him with his optics off. The minibot leaned forward and pressed his faceplate against cyclonus' lips, slowly and oh so sweetly that Cyclonus was afraid he'd melt.

Tailgate surged into him and he cried out into him, overload ravaging through his systems harder than it ever had before, a tingling heat followed by cool spreading through his chest, his arms, his fingertips, quickly creeping up his back and neck and into his jaw, which hung open loosely in pleasure as waves upon waves washed over him in slow, spreading succession.

" ** _Tailgate~!!_ ** " He mouthed against his faceplate, arching his back off the berth and bringing Tailgate with him. He surged the line, Tailgates release following his, his hand clamping down on the arm Cyclonus had around his back.

As they sat there in the sweet aftershocks Cyclonus heard his frame pop and clink as it cooled, the heavy weight on his chest shifting lovingly, delicately disengaging the live wire between them as their mouths hadn't disengaged yet. He softly grazed his teeth and glossa against what he would describe as a smile, the minibots mask pushed out a little further than when resting.

This whole thing wasn't over, but this certainly did help.

If  _ this _ was the plan for the next week or so, then Cyclonus didn't think he minded much. 

No actually, he didn't mind much at all.


End file.
